


Deadfall

by abel_runners



Series: Living With It [4]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Canon-Typical Violence, Cybernetics, Drinking, F/M, Flashbacks, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Mass Effect 2, Medical Trauma, My Shepard Is Having A Very Bad Time, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spacer (Mass Effect), Suicidal Thoughts, War Hero (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-16 21:54:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 15,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28963491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abel_runners/pseuds/abel_runners
Summary: When Ada Shepard wakes up in a burning lab, she's sure she’s in hell. Her body isn’t hers. Her crew's missing, or buried under snow. She's forced onto a Cerberus ship with people that make her sick. And they want her to be fine. Functional. The same shiny Commander Shepard from the vids two years ago. Well, she isn't. That Shepard died the second the Normandy went down, and she isn’t coming back.Or: how my Shepard gets through the nightmare that is ME2.
Relationships: Kaidan Alenko/Female Shepard
Series: Living With It [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2008957
Comments: 21
Kudos: 14





	1. Open Wound

**Author's Note:**

> This is part 4 of my [Living With It](https://archiveofourown.org/series/2008957) series, in which my Shepard has a (mostly) terrible time during Mass Effect 2. The other parts in the series provide some context for Ada’s mindset and past, but this can still be read as a standalone.
> 
> And please heed the tags! It gets dark for my poor Shep.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ada wakes up in a lab on fire, and can't figure out what the hell's happening. All she knows is that she needs to find her crew. No matter what. TW for descriptions of medical trauma in this one.

“Wake up, Commander!” 

The sharp taste of bitter arsenic. Floodlights above. Yellow-purple spots. 

_Wake up?_

“Shepard! Do you hear me? Get out of that bed, _now._ This facility is under attack!”

Bitter arsenic, and—

Ada gasps, heaves air in, cold sterile air filling her up. Air and attack and air, air, air, that’s all she needs, all she— 

“Move, now!”

Move? What? Floodlights, yellow-purple spots receding. Around her, metal. Glass. Metal and glass and light and screens. The orange glow of fire. _Fire?_ Attack. Under attack. Wake up, under attack, _move._

_Joker! Still on the ship. Find him. Now!_

Her body jolts, fights to curl into a roll but it’s not—

“Fuck!” A choked scream because there’s lines of fire, lines of heat and broken, swollen skin all over her, running down her. Muscles twitching, jerking, and she needs to _breathe_ needs to move needs to find Joker get him out get them all out but—

She spasms on hard metal. Sucking in air, sucking in cold pure air but she has to get them out, has to move, breathe and move, now! 

The voice, hard, cold, too loud: “Your scars aren’t fully healed, but I need you to get moving! _This facility is under attack_.”

_Attack. The attack. The Normandy, it’s under attack—fucking move, Shepard!_

She shoves her writhing body off the edge. Hits the floor hard, chin cracking against the tiles. White-hot pain shoots through her jaw. She groans, but the voice is still talking. Not Joker, but she needs to find him. Get the crew out. Get _out!_

“Hurry! Grab the armor and pistol from the locker.”

_What?_

Her eyes drag towards a block of gray and orange. Locker? Armor? No, no, that’s not right. In her armor, what’s what she’s supposed to be. Armor, helmet, fire extinguisher. She looks at her arms and they’re bare. Bruised needle-marks, scars, pale skin. _What?_

“You don’t have time to wait around, Shepard! Grab your weapon and armor!”

Damn voice, stupid fucking voice is right, because she needs her armor to get out, can’t get the crew out in her blues. She bites into her tongue and drags herself across the cold floor. Her eyes well up—each inch is agonizing, her broken skin pulled apart on cold tile.

But the locker is closer. Closer. _Here._

On her knees, she gropes for the latch, her fingers clumsy, numb, cold. But it clicks open, and there’s armor. Armor to get _out,_ get them all the fuck out, the alarm blaring loud, smoke thick. She fumbles with the armor, barely able to stitch together what each piece is supposed to be. Drops a glove. Struggles to pick it up.

“I know it’s hard to move, but you have to speed it up. We don’t have time.”

Armor, it’s on. Most of it. Probably. And she has a gun. The rest of the room, watery, too much light—did Adams turn on the Normandy’s lights on too bright?—and it doesn’t make any fucking sense. Joker. Where is he? 

“Keep your head down—watch those canisters—they’ll explode!” 

Her body moves before she tells it to. Huddling behind an overturned desk, the explosion rocks the metal, muffles her hearing. Her heart pounds in her teeth. Desk and Joker and Kaidan and the crew. She fumbles for her comms, for them, the fire roaring, her blood, roaring.

Comms are dead. _Fuck!_

“Get into the next room!”

The door is right there. Crew. They’ll be closer if she gets through the door. She crawls to her feet, lurches towards the green lock, moving wrong, did Kaidan get to the shuttle yet? Told him to. The Alliance, they’ll be here soon. They have to be.

The door slides open and it’s dark. Behind glass windows, dark and cold and stars. Shouldn’t be seeing stars. Where’s her crew? The voice is saying something—something about barricade, something about security—but she can’t hear, eyes glued to the vacuum outside. 

_Stars. Cold. No air._

Why—? 

“Look _out_! Watch the mech!” 

A resounding _bang_ dents the metal behind her head.

Doesn’t matter why. What matters is the attack. Her ship, her people. Getting out. Nothing else. 

Behind a barricade now, breathing hard, sweat dripping into her armor, and the mech’s here. Must’ve boarded the ship. A mass of white metal, red glass and gunfire that’s headed straight towards her.

The mech says: “Please reconsider your aggressive actions.” The mech fires two bullets into the wall behind her.

Her arms, her hands, they’re refusing to _move_. She needs to move, or everyone’s gonna die. And that can’t— _won’t—_ happen. She won’t let this happen. But her hands. They’re clenched around the gun, and they won’t move.

The mech shuffles closer, metal clinking. She grits her teeth, breathing in thin and ragged. 

_Come on! Move!_

She finally does. Her first shot is so wide it almost cracks the window, denting the wall, hands and arms still locked up and not responding like they should _._ The mech fires at her, her shields beep a warning, but she doesn’t pull back. No choice but to save them. Get them all out.

Her second shot grazes its shoulder with a shower of sparks. The mech doesn’t react. Fucker! How many are there? Boarding her ship, her home, fire and smoke. Her people, she has to get them to evac. Two steps closer and the mech shoots again. Her shields fizz, loud, against her ear. Sharp ozone and her own sweat clog up her nose. She blearily aims for the head, and forces her frozen finger down on the trigger.

With a loud beep, the mech cracks, staggers and collapses. 

She’s gotta keep moving—but god. God, she’s sick, dizzy. She leans her forehead on the bullet-ridden table and squeezes her eyes shut, until it’s dark again, nothing but dark. 

The voice. It keeps talking. “Keep moving. We need to get you to the shuttles.”

 _Shuttles. Shuttles!_ She raises her head. Finally, the hard cold voice is saying something that makes some damn sense. Escape shuttles, that’s where she needs to be. Where she needs to get everyone. Told Kaidan to get there already so he'll be there, waiting.

She’s stumbled all the way to the base of the stairs. Stairs that aren’t the right stairs, but it doesn’t matter, because the escape shuttles. A path there. The reverberations of the explosions are getting closer, so close she feels them in her temples.

The stairs. That’s all she needs to do. But the instant she asks her leg push her up that first step—it doesn’t. It refuses to bend like she’s used to it bending so the world tilts, and she’s slamming her shoulder into the edge, flailing to the floor, the breath knocked out of her. Down.

_Again._

The stairs stretch up and up and up and up. Her crew, on the other side, the escape shuttles, the way out of the heat, the fire, getting them all _out—safe—I promised they’d be safe—_

But she can’t move. Stuck here. Alone.

_The crew—Kaidan—please—!_

A voice, an instinct in her bones seizes her. Grips her by the throat and snarls: _do this, Shepard, or they all die.  
_

She presses her forehead into the hard, cold floor. God. God, it hurts. _Don't make me. Please.  
  
_ _Do this. Or they all die.  
  
_ She screws her eyes shut. Damn it. Damn it! She has to. Her shaking arm reaches for the bottom of the banister. Fingers grip the hard edge. _Do this or die._ Ada holds her breath, braces herself—this will fucking _hurt_ —and her orders her arm to pull. Please _. Please_. 

She screams, breaking at the edges. Her shoulder, pulling out of its socket. Raw nerve grinding against bone. Another stair. Her stomach twists. She retches up nothing as she drags herself up, throat scalding and vision so watery she can’t see anything but blur.

She dry-heaves her whole way up the stairs. But she makes it to the door.

* * *

Blood in her mouth. She stares at the man in front of her—but it’s no one from her crew. No one she’s ever met.

And he’s saying something goddamn impossible.

“What?”

“I’m Jacob Taylor. This is a Cerberus lab. The Normandy went down, and so did you, but we brought you back from the dead. Your crew—they aren’t here. Okay?”

Blood, in her mouth. Blood. Cerberus. Dead. Normandy. Crew. 

_Crew_. Over and over in her head, stuck like a fish on a hook. Crew. Crew. Crew. All that matters, all that she has left. Promised they’d be safe. Promised Kaidan he’d be safe with her. They’re not here, but she’ll find them. Get out of this damn Cerberus lab, back to the Normandy and she’ll get them to the escape shuttles. 

She pushes herself away from Taylor, and limps towards the next door. 

Her crew, she’ll fucking _find_ them. And she’ll get them out of here. Even if it kills her.

* * *

Trapped on another dark, rumbling shuttle, she’s glaring at Taylor. Her hands, won’t stop twitching, clasped together tight or not. A woman—the voice, that was her, Lawson—next to him. But if Ada looks at her she might kill her— _needles sink in,_ _a pale icy face stares down, shoves her into the dark—_ so she keeps her eyes fixed on Lawson’s lackey.

“Tell me where they are.”

“Commander. _Listen_. We need to go to Freedom’s Progress first. For your crew, it’s been two—” 

“Take me to them. _Now_.”

“We have to go to Freedom’s Progress before the trail goes cold, Shepard. I’m sorry. Your crew—they’ll have to wait.” 

Orange logo behind him, the dark outside. She forces the words out though clenched teeth. “If we. If we go to Freedom’s Progress, then will you tell me where the _hell_ my crew is?” 

“Yes, ma'am. That’s a promise.”

Bitter arsenic. Blood in her mouth. _Great._ A promise from her fucking captors.

* * *

Medi-gel’s just enough to keep her on her feet through the first wave of mechs. Any slow, steady cybernetic acclimation process is long gone—all she can do is survive this. Survive whatever these Cerberus fuckers did to her.

More mechs. Snow on the rooftops, empty living rooms, dinners just barely cold. Her missing crew and a missing colony. Everything, everything’s missing. _Where am I?_ Huddled and trembling behind cover. Snow. A bitter chill on her shaved scalp. A mission. What mission? Joker, Kaidan, escape shuttles? No one’s talking about that. Why isn’t anyone—? 

Tali’s standing in front of her.

_Tali!_

She stumbles forward, arms reaching. Tali got out. Tali escaped. “Tali! Oh, thank god. You’re safe!”

Tali steps back, pins of light behind her helmet wide. 

“Shepard? _Shepard?_ What? Is that really you? You—what—? You were dead!” 

The room lurches. 

“What? I—no, listen, you’re safe. Right? You’re safe. Is the rest of the crew here?”

Tali wrings her hands, nervous, she’s nervous. Engineering and the blue light, she was so nervous the first day, and by the last she was standing tall. Why is she here? “Yes, I’m safe, but I don’t understand. You were dead. How are you here?”

The voice—Lawson, right, Lawson’s her name—speaks up, cold and hard. “Commander Shepard _was_ dead, but we rebuilt her.”

“Keelah. Keelah. I can't believe it. And who are you, exactly?”

Taylor straightens his shoulders next to her. “We’re Cerberus. We’re trying to figure out the who’s abducting human colonies, and we needed Shepard for that.”

“Wait, _w_ _hat?_ Cerberus? Shepard! You can’t be serious. It’s Cerberus! You must remember what they—?”

“I just woke up in their lab a couple hours ago, okay? I don’t know what the fuck’s going on either. The rest of the crew—are they here?”

“The ... Normandy crew? No. I’m here on a mission with my own crew. We’re trying to find one of our people. You—Shepard. You’ve been gone for two years.”

The edges. The edges of Tali, they blur. Her stomach, sick. Two—what the fuck? What the _fuck?_ No. No. No. That can’t be right. She was getting them to the escape shuttles. She was getting Joker out. Kaidan. Out. And then the lab. Two—?

Tali’s still talking but Ada can’t hear her through the rushing in her ears. Eyes stuck on the new purple stitching on Tali’s suit. Tali, she’s safe but no one else is here. Two years. A lie. It has to be a lie— _but why would Tali lie to me?_ —or she misspoke, or her translator glitched. The rest of the crew have to be somewhere nearby. Taylor and Lawson promised, promised they’d take her to them after this colony. Can’t be right.

She pushes out of the room, and follows Tali’s lead through the freezing colony. Then they’re in another room, bathed in an orange sickly glow, and the word _Collectors_ keeps getting thrown around. There’s a shaking quarian next to Tali. Tali, shoulders tall. New stitching in her suit. Got out safe. Glitchy translator.

She’s leaving.

“Tali.”

Tali looks back, and there’s a gap Ada can’t bridge in her expression. In the way the pins of light flicker. 

“Yes?”

“I—I’m—” The words die in her throat. 

And Tali walks away.

On the shuttle again. Tali, warm and tall and gone. Doesn’t make sense. She isn’t supposed to be gone. 

_She’s. She’s safe. She escaped. That’s what matters._

* * *

Joker. Here. Alive. A wry, tired smile on his face. No burning cockpit behind him, no needles from a Cerberus lab. Just like Tali— 

He got out. 

She’s crushing him in a shaky, clumsy hug without thinking.

“Watch the ribs! Shepard, _Shepard,_ careful—!”

She pulls back, hands on his shoulders. Looking at him. “Oh my god, you’re okay. You got out. You’re okay.” 

“Yeah. I’m good. Now quit squeezing me to death, okay?”  
  
“Sorry.” She drops her hands, and looks around. This lab’s different. A shuttle ride off the cold colony, they took her somewhere else. Promised they’d show where her crew is. Looks like more of a spaceport, but they probably just want to transport them somewhere secure. The rest of her crew’s nowhere to be found. Not here. 

_Find them. And get the hell out. Out of the ship, out of Cerberus._

“We need to leave.”

“Hey, wait. I think you need to sit down. You look like hell.”

She shakes his hand off, fighting the vicious wave of nausea that movement brought with it. “No, we need to get out of here, and find the rest of the crew.”

“Commander, they aren’t—”

“Come on. We need a ship.”

* * *

“Are you sure about this?”

Joker catches her on her way over to the shuttle. Bright bright lights behind him. Bright like the lab, bright like the glint of a needle, the edge of scalpel.

This ship’s all wrong but she can’t think about that now, because she’s almost there. Almost found them. 

“I am.”

He scrubs a hand over his stubbled face. Dark circles and a sheen of sweat, he looks so unsure. So worried. Since when the fuck does Joker worry about anything? “It’s not gonna be pretty. You know that, right?”

“I need to find them.”

“I—god, Shepard. This isn’t a good idea, but—okay. Okay. Just be careful. Please. And radio if you need anything.”

No answer. She heaves her body into the shuttle. Still on her feet from the medi-gel, otherwise she’d have collapsed into a heap a long time ago. Bitter arsenic in her mouth is getting bad again. Like floor cleaner, like biting into a grainy painkiller—sharply chemical, corrosive, wrong. 

She sets the course for groundside.

* * *

The shuttle door slides open. Blue ice stretches out before her. Blue ice, mist, a bitter chill. She steps out, unsteady, glittering snow crunching under her boots. 

All around her. Encircled. The Normandy. _Her_ Normandy. And— 

Her crew. She found them. 

But it's wrong. Warped metal. Blown-open, charred lockers. And the dog-tags. All twenty-two locations, blinking on her omni. Waiting for her to start digging.

There, alone on the ice, Ada feels herself die.


	2. Exile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of Alchera, Ada tries to find a way forward. TW for a few descriptions of suicidal thoughts.

The tags clink in her fist. Her armor’s dripping from the snow, helmet under her arm. Joker. In front of her, again. Eggshell-pale, mouth moving. His hand hovers above her shoulder. Falls back.

She drifts right past him.

Her hands. Legs. Weak. Fingers failing, she’s a minute away from dropping them all to the floor. But she’s gotta get them to the cabin. To a box. Send them home.

Bright orange, it’s still everywhere. Not sure how she ended up in the CIC. Was there a reason? The Yeoman’s next to her—what was her name again?—hair orange too, talking, maybe. The tags, glinting under the light. Ada stands there. Waiting. Her eyes shift to the shadowy corner of the room. Wires and shadows. No orange there. Dark, forever.

No. _No_. That’ll come later. Crew needs to go home first.

Orange-hair’s mouth stops moving. She waits for something, maybe, but Ada doesn’t give it. Floats away.

The elevator slides shut. Buttons. What do the buttons mean? The tags sway and her fingers are loosening. The orange glows. She needs to. Press something. Needs to go. Eyes are blurry, in her mouth, that blood, the corrosive bitterness, and she can’t figure out— 

_Cabin._

There. She hits the button. Forehead clunks to the cold wall.

The doors to the cabin hiss open. Fish-tank blue that makes her sick is still there, too-big still bed there, Cerberus logo still there. She staggers forward. Almost there. Desk and a box and her crew going home. Getting them out of the snow. They must’ve been so cold. So fucking cold all this time. 

Her legs give out and she collapses into the desk chair. Clammy sweat is damp on her forehead, her back, her arms. Armor heavy, pinching. Doesn’t matter. What matters is finding—the box. _There_. Small, metal, rectangular. Simple storage. It’s nowhere _near_ good enough for them, but it’ll have to do. 

She places the tags on the desk. A heap of twenty-two, still glistening with slow-melting ice. 

The first one. She picks it up with care, doing her best not to disturb the others. Still, they clatter. Angry.

_Grieco, Marcus_

Her eyes slip closed. His stubbled face, his cream-sugar coffee, the light of the engineering room low and blue. He grumbles at the engines but he smiles soft every time he talks to her or Tali or anyone. First one she’d talk to on her morning rounds.

_I’m so—god, I’m so fucking sorry._

She gently places Marcus in the box. Keeps his pearly-silver necklace neat and straight. He always liked things neat.

Next one. _Draven, Thalia._ Big bright eyes and a bubbly enthusiasm that reminded Ada of when she was a kid. Thalia always keeping the star maps in check and never complaining. Even made Pressly chuckle once. 

Her hands search for the other tag. _Draven, Rose._ Big sister, serious, strong arms but she’d save Thalia the best parts of her rations every morning, she’d do crosswords in the mess, she’d laugh at her sister’s puns when no one else would. Always borrowing Ashley’s Tennyson book, chatting excited and happy with Ash about the meanings behind each poem. Something Ada never could keep up with, but it made them happy. And that’s what counted.

She puts them side by side in the box, fingers lingering on the engraved names. Together now. Did they die together, too?

Next tag. And the next. Putting them in the box, tracing the names, keeping them in order. Her whole face, numb, the tags fuzzy and far away. Everything’s so far out of reach now. 

The box is full.

A breath, slow, shaky. She’s still breathing, even though. Even though she’s holding her crew in her hands. Slow rise to her feet, the box coming with her. Each step, it has to be steady. Can’t drop it now. The door ahead. Okay. Now it’s time to get them down to—wait. _Shit_. How’s she supposed to get these to the Alliance again?

Bile burns the lining of her throat.

_No._

No. Fuck no. She’ll have to give them to the orange-haired Yeoman or Lawson or someone else wearing a Cerberus-stamped uniform. They’ll handle the box, disturb the tags, get their hands on them, and she _won’t_ let Cerberus do that to her crew too. 

But what else is she supposed to do here? She has to get them to their families even if it kills her, and she can’t just— 

_Anderson._

Ada’s fingers claw into the box. No. Absolutely not. There’s no way she can see him again. Not like this, with her Cerberus ship and Cerberus uniform and Cerberus body. Not after what she did.

_But he’d do it right._

She stares at the silver metal. Silver like the edges of Grieco’s hair. Silver like Alexei’s drone.

_Okay. Okay._

_For them._

“Joker.” Her voice is thin. Quiet like the dead. “Set a course for the Citadel.”

* * *

Ada vacantly stares at the SR-2’s hull, shiny. Gleaming. Doesn’t know how long she’s been staring, but her eyes itch. Her feet ache at the edges. 

She did what she came here to do. 

Her crew, they’re safe in Anderson's hands. He’ll give them to Hackett, and they’ll go to their families. She found them, and they’ll go home.

_I won’t._

The SR-2 hisses. Uniforms rush in, rush out. Prepping for take-off soon. Her mouth, still numb. All of her, numb. Lost. Anderson told her about red tape. If she wanted to come back, so much red tape, months of it, a hearing, an investigation. But she could. Come back.

_I can’t. I’m sorry._

That’s what she said. _I can’t._ _The red tape. I’m sorry._ But the real reason, well. It got stuck in the back of her throat. Did Anderson know? Could he tell? He was holding the box of tags, but he doesn’t know how she got them. And she couldn’t say it. Couldn’t tell him that the thought of coming back makes her sick now, because she dug them up. One by one. Failed them, one by one. Fucked up everything she’s ever stood for. There’s no coming back from that. No putting her blues back on. No _Commander Shepard_ left. 

She can’t go back, but she’s not sure she can do this, either. Cerberus. The ship, it gleams. God, she doesn’t—she doesn’t _have_ to go in. Can’t go back to the Alliance, but that doesn’t mean she has to turn to Cerberus, either. A handful of credits, an old shuttle, she could leave. Lose herself in a cramped corner of the galaxy. Or—her gaze drifts out into the big, empty space where the docks drop off. She could just … Yeah. 

She could.

The air’s chilly against her shaved head. Scars on her jawline ache, a deep bruise. The dull clink of the tags echoes. Forever. 

_Is there a body?_

Mrs Williams. Her face rises up in the haze. The crack in her voice when Ada made that call. A family, broken. A wound that’ll never heal, a space that’ll never fill. 

Now. Twenty-two families. Lives. Broken. Because of her. All that’s left are tags. Anderson, he’s taking them home, but that’s all she can do.

_Maybe not._

The ship, it gleams, and she—she forces it. Forces her dead hands to push off the banister, her heavy feet to start walking forward. Each step, strained, every reinforced fiber of muscle in her legs wanting to stop, to collapse, to turn the fuck around and never step foot in that ship again. 

But she has to do this. Tags, that’s not enough. Not for her crew. Her people. The families destroyed, the ones getting destroyed every passing day. There has to be something else. Something more. There’s no Alliance for her anymore, but— 

The airlock slides open. Shiny orange and silver. A betrayal. This is a betrayal of her dead life, of everything that came before, and she’s walking right into it. One last glance back towards the Citadel, that drop-off into emptiness—she _could_ just—

She forces herself into the bridge. Sickness swamps her, but she does it anyway. Joker waves a weary greeting. 

The airlock seals shut behind her, her fate sealing with it too.

_First I’ll blow up the Collectors. For them. My crew, and the families left in their absence. The families the Collectors keep taking._

_Then I can go._


	3. Snare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ada heads to Omega, hoping she'll find some relief there, even if it's just for a night. It doesn't pan out that way. Warning for descriptions of heavy drinking/substance use in this chapter.

Ada stalks into Lawson’s office, a cold, piercing anger right behind her forehead. She shouldn’t be surprised, because of course they’d do this. Of-fucking- _course._ They _saw_ her and the tags and her crew. They were there the whole time.

The door shuts and Lawson looks up from her screen. “Yes, Commander?”

Ada puts her hands on her desk, leaning over her. The cybernetics are still twitchy, still hard to walk with, but she can stand. Stand, and glare, and _loom._ “Get every bug out of my quarters. _Now_.”

Lawson blinks up at her, giving her a placid, emotionless smile. Ada’s anger sharpens, a razor-edge—she can’t stand looking at her. Can’t. She darts her gaze to the wall instead or she might do something stupid.

“I'm sorry. I can't do that. The Illusive Man needs to monitor our mission to ensure it goes smoothly.”

Ada lets out a short bark of laugh, freezing and brittle. “Bullshit. I'm not letting him spy on me in my cabin, and don’t you dare say that that’s mission-critical. Get rid of them, Lawson. That’s an order.” 

“Look, I understand your frustration—”

“Like _hell_ you do!” Ada snaps, voice rising loud and cracked like split ice. Lawson doesn’t even flinch, that calm fucking look still on her face.

“I understand your frustration, Shepard, but I can't just rip out our systems. We only monitor the main areas of each room. Bathrooms and such are left private.”

“That’s not _good_ enough.” Ada crosses her aching arms, nails dug into the tough skin. “God, fine. Don't do anything. I'll figure it out myself.”

“Wait. You can't just—”

“I can and I will. Go ahead and fire me if you don’t like it.” 

Lawson breathes out slow. “I know this is a difficult transition, but you need to try and adapt to—”

“No.” 

With that, Ada half-limps out without a second glance. Fuck that. Omega. That’s where she’ll go, and she’ll find something to fix this. If she’s staying on this damn ship—and she is, she has to—there’s no way in hell she’ll let them _watch._

* * *

The thick, acrid smoke of burned plastic clogs her lungs. Ada stumbles behind an overturned couch, collapsing to her knees, vision swimming and bending. Fuck. Fuck, she’s sick already, they’re only halfway to the clinic but she— _goddamn it—_

Muffled shots. Cold sweat trickles down her forehead. She grips her pistol in her shaky, useless hands and darts a glance out of cover. Red blur of vorcha and snarling varren, Lawson’s omni sparking. Her stomach lurches and she falls back into a huddle, fist pressed into her mouth. Moving, it’s still so damn hard, especially in a drawn-out fight. The anti-rejection meds Chakwas gave her are supposed to help, but it's a long process, weeks of waiting until they kick in and stabilize things.

She doesn’t have weeks.

Here, now, it’s the lab all over again, crawling on her knees, heavy armor weighing like wet sandbags on her back, twitchy muscles that don’t— 

Face in front of her. Taylor, scowling. “—hear me? Miranda! Something’s wrong.”

Another face. Their two faces crowd up and Ada curls deeper into herself, teeth forced shut against the bile. Bile and shakiness and her damn muscles that don’t fucking _work_ , she can’t even shoot straight because Cerberus fucked up her body, and now they want her to—need her to get to the clinic—that horrible smell of burned plastic and rotten meat— 

“She’s still acclimating to the cybernetics, Jacob. That’s all. Shepard. _Shepard._ Hey. Look at me.”

She jerks her head away from them. Her thighs twitch and burn, boots skittering against the grimy tile, the gun in her hand groaning against her death-grip. “Fuck. Fuck _off._ ”

“I’m going to give you a dose of medigel and inject a stim. It’ll help with the pain and the muscle spasms. Stay still, alright?” 

Pale hands reach towards her and she flinches back, shoving her head against the couch, heart hammering hard behind her sternum. _Gloved hands and gauze and the piercing light above her. The tube down her throat, the needle silver, a pale face and she’s shoved into the dark—_

Hands grip her shoulders and she tries to lurch away, to kick, a guttural scream in the back of her throat, but there’s a pinch at her neck. More steady talking. She squeezes her eyes shut, breath short and shallow. 

Fuckers. _Fuckers_.

A couple of stuttering inhales later, her legs stop twitching. The burning pain in her arms fades into a dull, bruised throb. The nausea eases up. 

She claws herself up onto her feet, shoving away the hands Lawson and Taylor extend. 

“Let’s. Let’s go.”

* * *

“You go ahead. I’m getting a drink.” 

“Commander, are you sure you’re—”

“Back to the ship. Both of you. That’s an order.”

Lawson and Taylor share another damn _look_ but Ada doesn’t care. Already turning on her heel, she heads straight towards the pulsing red, the loud thud of the music.

Afterlife smells like cheap vodka and sour sweat. 

She shoves her way through bodies. Her own body is getting clumsy again—medi-gel and that stim must be wearing off—but there are other bodies here and they’re not hers and that’s a good thing. Strobe red, the bartender in front of her, and this is what she fucking needs. Dead on her feet or not. 

A shot glass is gripped in her hand. Cold. Blue. Garrus, blue blood all over her hands. Cold, digging in the snow, a molar split open, hard ice under her knees and— 

_Shut the hell up._ The shot burns like chugging paint thinner the whole way down, but it’s good. Good and what she needs and this isn’t happening. None of this can be happening. The pounding music thumps up through her feet, into her chest, her ears stuffy and hurting already—too loud. Too much. All of this is too much.

She decided to stay with Cerberus but _fuck_ , it’s just too much. Garrus, bleeding. He’s okay now, on his feet with a bandaged face, but he was bleeding, choking on it, and she didn’t stop it. Her hands, dripping with more blood of the people she was supposed to keep safe. And the shiny ship in the dock, waiting for her. God, with its bright lighting and ugly orange plastered everywhere—horrible. So she’s staying here, so she’s downing more shots, so she’s choking down the wet cough.

_You’ll have to go back sometime. You’re theirs now. A Cerberus dog._

She slams her fist into her armored thigh. Doesn’t register the bruised ache. A low snarl to the bartender: “Give me something stronger. Strongest thing you have.”

“Alright, alright. Just don’t puke on my bar, got it?” 

The smell of blueberries and a shimmery neon blue. The drink sticks to the back of her throat, cloying, filmy, but it’ll have to do. Writhing, glittering bodies push against each other and they don’t look right. Monstrous.

_They’re still stuck in the ice because of you, you know that? You should be with them, but for some reason, you’re here. Getting old friends shot. Dragging them all down with you. Revolting is what it is._

The red around her blurs. She paces. Boots hard against the glass floor. She’s been waiting for god knows how long now, in the smoke and red and sweat. Waiting for the alcohol to kick the hell in. Her lips are wet with another shot, but it’s not doing shit, and why the hell isn’t this doing anything? She lost count of how many drinks she had a long time ago. Should be drunk by now. Blind, stumbling, numb. But her thoughts are sharp, and the ground’s solid, and she’s still here. She’s drinking something else, her stomach full, and all the sugar’s making her a little dizzy, but that’s it. Why the fuck isn’t it—?

Down in the hallway. Knuckles pressed into the scar on her eyebrow until it flares hot. None of this is goddamn _working_. Cerberus dog. Shiny faces in a living room, Julia pulling her onto the dancefloor, mojito spilled all over her top. The armory smelling like Ash’s favorite spiced whiskey. Slippery blue blood all over hands. A split molar on the ice. Dug up with the tags. In her gloved hand, bone-white against the black cloth.

She’s chugging something cold and bitter and she’s sick of it, but her head’s clear. Shouldn’t be clear. She can’t _take it_ being clear. 

_Cybernetics. Enhanced organs. Didn’t it say something about that in the file?_

The file in the lab. The words _liver_ , the words _enhanced_. Must be processing the alcohol too fast for it to do anything. Or maybe it’s doing something but that something only lasts a couple minutes until she’s sober again. She’d have to drink gallons of the stuff, and even then— 

“Fuck!”

She kicks the wall, hard, a half-formed sob stuck in her throat. Bruised pain lances up her toe, up her foot, and this can’t be real. She can’t even get drunk. They had to take that too, didn’t they? Her life, her crew, her friends, her family, Kaidan—that wasn’t enough. Everything wasn’t _enough_ for them. 

They fucking trapped her here like an animal. Or she trapped herself, she chose to walk right into the snare, but at the end of the day—she’s stuck here _._ And yeah, she told herself all those shifting, blurry promises of honor, of bringing peace to broken families, of stopping horrible shit from happening, but it’s all the same thing: she’s caught, her leg gripped in a damn trap and bleeding out slow. And they won’t let her escape. Not even for a night. Not even with a couple drinks.

Plastic baggies full of a deep red powder. Her gaze catches on them—passing from hand to hand, open on tables, lines shiny in the light.

_That. That might do it._

She freezes at the whispered, dark thought. _No_. That’d be insane. Even as a stupid teenager, she never touched the hard stuff. She should go back to the ship. Get away from this before she does something she won’t be able to take back.

Dilated pupils and waxy, far-off smiles. It’d be bad. The most reckless thing she’s done in a long time. But her insides are twisting in on themselves tighter and tighter, and she’s a Cerberus dog, and the tags clink in her hands, and she’s fucking _stuck_ here until the Collectors are dead, so what does it even matter if she just takes the edge off with— 

“Shepard! Hey, there you are.”

Hand on her shoulder, she whirls around. Joker. Wait, what? Joker? Joker’s supposed to be in the escape shuttle. The ship, or the escape shuttle—not _here_ — 

“What are you doing here? You need to—”

“Jacob sent me. Said he was worried.”

“What?”

Joker’s pale and wincing at the loud, thumping bass. _Bass_. They’re in a club. The lines are carved deep in his face. Deeper than she’s ever seen them.

“We should get outta here, don’t you think? This place smells like varren piss.” He tugs on her arm but she stays put. Why’s he here? She doesn’t—get it. She was in the middle of something, wasn’t she? 

“I’m busy.”

“Sure, but we still need you back on the ship. Can’t exactly take off without the CO on board. Come on. You seriously want to stick around here?” A thin smile but his eyes are serious, dark. Still has his hand on her arm, gripping harder now.

She stares at him, unblinking. “I can’t get drunk. You know that? My fancy new liver won’t let me. Can’t even get fucking _drunk,_ Joker. And you really want me to go back to them?” 

“Wait. Really? You can’t get drunk?”

“Nope. Tried, and nothing. So just. God, just give me a minute, okay? I don’t want to go back there yet. I don’t—I…” Her shoulders cave in. Her jaw, unclenching. Rag-doll limp.

_I don’t want to be here at all._

“Alright, I hear you. How about we go outside? Get some fresh—well, filtered air. See if there’s any good food carts around. I’d kill for something that’s not Gardner’s cooking.”

“Food carts. Yeah. Okay,” she murmurs, and she lets Joker half-tug her out of the lowlit hall, helps him push through the crowded bar, and holds him steady as they get out into the grimy street. The bass quiets down behind them, and the air’s a little cooler out here. 

They’re sitting on a bench. Skycars speed past above them, off into the smoggy mess of a horizon. Joker’s munching on something. Chicken wrap, maybe.

“Want some?”

She shakes her head. Laces her gloved hands together and tightens them until her fingers ache. The sky’s dirty. The bench is uncomfortable as all hell. She’d give up anything to dissolve into the hard, stained ground. Never come back.

Pedestrians move past in front of them, eyes low, footsteps quick. The station groans and hums. There’s a steady ticking somewhere she can’t place. Joker finishes his snack, wiping his mouth with a napkin, but he doesn’t move to get up.

They sit there. And sit there. Traffic humming, watching people come and go and go. Joker stays right next to her. Things don’t get any better, but they don’t get worse, either.

Her dry, bloodshot eyes slip closed. Yeah. They don’t get worse. And that’s—something.


	4. Hardline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ada wrestles with the aftershocks of Horizon.

_The trees rustle. A hawk, circling the blue sky. His lips taste like almond lip-balm, soft and warm against hers. The rotten peaches in her pack fade away._

He’s staring at her, eyes hard, full of jagged hurt. The trees rustle, a hawk in the sky, but they’re somewhere else. Somewhere worse. Her scalp’s getting sunburnt. And Kaidan.

Kaidan. _Here_. She found him, but—deep, dark circles. Flecks of gray in his hair that weren’t there before. The sun backing him, the hawk circling, dust, and all she wants—to reach out, pull him in, breathe the scent of sweat and citrus cologne, go back, go back, she just wants—needs to go back and— 

Her mouth. She knows it’s moving, must be talking, but she doesn’t know what the hell she’s saying. How there aren’t any options, maybe. How she can’t go back. Can’t go back to them, to him, to her blues. Made that decision already, and it’s too late to change her mind. Her Cerberus body, her Cerberus scars. The bodies in the ice stay in the back of her throat—can’t say it. Can’t tell him. Can’t. 

“Goodbye, Ada. And be careful.”

The hawk circles the blue sky. He turns away from her, disappears into the shimmering heat, and a part of her, deep down, curls up. Whimpers. Dies. _Knew this would happen someday._ _That he’d leave. Knew it._

 _This is a good thing._ She wipes at the dust in her armor, rag in hand. Dust, beige. It’s stuck in the shoulderpads, in the corners of the breastplate, on the edges of her boots. She’s in the armory—Taylor’s somewhere else, thank god—and she’s been scrubbing for, what, hours? Feels like hours. Her neck, knotted. But it’s not coming off. The tips of her fingers are pink and raw. She digs the rag deeper into the edge of the armor’s neckline. Damn it. What’s in Horizon’s dust anyway?

_“How could you put me through that? And your family!” Kaidan’s voice trembles and cracks like ice, like broken ice, his eyes wearier than she’s ever seen them. “You’re betraying everything we stood for. You’re betraying the Alliance. Me. I don’t get it. I don’t get it.”_

She presses the scratchy cloth into a red-glow scar on her hand, the bite sharp and vicious. _Quit it._ That’s. That’s over now. He’s gone. It’s over. _God, it’s—it’s over, Ada._ He’s as far as he can get from this damn mission, from her, from anything that’s remotely Cerberus. And that’s a good thing. She won’t drag him down. Can’t stomach the idea of him in Cerberus orange, standing under the lab-bright lights of this ship, stuck on a one-way mission with her. 

She scrubs at the chipped red and white. A thread, cut. Necessary. Keeping him safe. That’s what’s important here. No early-morning tea on his patio, hand wrapped around his waist, no coming back to his apartment, sun-flooded and smelling like blueberry pancakes. That’s all done. Has to be.

The dust doesn’t come off, but her arms are shaky now, and her vision’s fuzzy and wrong. She shoves the armor back into her locker, locks it tight. Out in the hallway now. Bitter coffee and a question from Garrus she doesn’t really hear. Datapad. A report. Galaxy map. 

_This is a good thing. A good thing. A good thing._

She sets her jaw, she sets the splintered bones inside her. And she plots the course for the next planet, next assignment, next step towards the end of all this. All of this, it’ll be over soon. And she'll go with it.

_I hope you take care, Kay._


	5. Scattershot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite all her attempts at staying away, Ada can't help but connect, disconnect, and reconnect with her crew, both old and new.

“I said the same thing to Joker, Garrus and Chakwas, Tali. It’s not about your skills or that I don’t trust you. It’s about Cerberus. This damn _place_ and these damn people. I don’t want any of you here.”

Those pins of light, they widen at her sharp tone, and something inside Ada splinters at the sight. But god, why the fuck was Kaidan the only one to _listen_ to her? To stay away from Cerberus, from her? He’s doing the good thing. The right thing. But everyone else? Garrus said it’s because, after Omega, he doesn’t have anywhere else to go. No one else he trusts other than Joker and her. Chakwas, that she needs to bring the Collectors down; that she owes Ada. Joker said he wanted to fly. Anything to fly and escape Earth. Groundside driving him crazy. Nothing she said made them leave. Nothing. 

And now Tali’s about to get dragged down with them, too. 

“Shepard, I lost my entire team. I need to _do_ something, and you are doing something. It’s clear you don’t trust Cerberus, either, so I’m going to stay. I need to.”

Ada shuts her eyes, biting into her cheek. The heaviness in Tali’s gait, the ragged edge to her voice. So far away from the nervous kid in engineering, her bubbly laugh at the bar, straw in her suit. And now Cerberus. 

But she could never stop Tali. Not from chasing down geth with her shotgun, not from this. As much as it scares her to death.

“Fine. But you can always change your mind. You can always leave, no matter what. I mean that.”

Tali squeezes her shoulder on the way out. “I’ll be with you all the way, Shepard.”

Ada’s head drops. _Please. Don’t be._

* * *

God _damn it._ Her wrist—she didn’t feel it while talking to Tali, but now? The pain’s sharp and insistent, hot, wrong. Her cybernetics, are they fucked up? Maybe, maybe not, but it’s not going away. A hard swallow. She’s gonna have to brave the med-bay. Bitter arsenic and bright lights.   
  
She walks in, ignoring the wave of dizziness.

“I’m—wait. Where’s Dr Chakwas?”

Dr Solus—Mordin—jumps, turning around, eyes wide. “Commander. Am currently covering for Dr Chakwas. She is occupied. Do you have medical concerns to report?”

Ada clenches her jaw. Cradles her throbbing, bruised wrist. She’s not in the mood to see Mordin. Not after what he told her about what he did to the krogan. She just wants to get her wrist looked at, take a shower, and try to get some shut-eye. Talking to someone who continued the genophage is not on her damn list of priorities.

_Not sure you’re much better, Shepard. Cerberus dog, remember? There’s blood on your hands, too._

She sits down on the exam table, a twinge of pain lancing through her wrist. Probably shouldn’t have tried punching a geth’s face in, cybernetics or not. She squints through the bright, bright lights. Stupid lights. Stupid wrist. Stupid fucking day.  
  
“It’s my wrist. I think I fucked it up on Haestrom.”  
  
He leans in, omni glowing, and Ada has to resist the urge to flinch. Fucking doctors, fucking scans, _god_ she just wants this to be over.

“May I see it?”  
  
“I—yeah. Fine.”

He hums, gingerly examining it. A gentleness in his movements she wasn’t expecting. “Hmm. Looks sprained from impact. What happened?”

“I, uh. Punched a geth.”

His mouth twitches upwards—what, is that a smile? She scowls at her knees. Where’s Chakwas when you need her? “Ah. I see. It is sprained, but cybernetics should heal quickly. Fascinating, your cybernetics. Have not seen reconstruction this extensive in person. Fusion of organic and synthetic material is a medical miracle. The implications are—”  
  
She sighs, hard. Yeah, maybe she’d be interested in the biology of cybernetics back in high school, and back when it wasn’t her own damn body that was being talked about, but this isn’t the time. Or place. Or life.  
  
“ _Mordin_. Am I good to go?”  
  
“Hm? Oh, yes.” He lets go of her wrist. This close, she can see the marred edges of the scars on his face. _Wonder how those got there._ “Rest seventy-two hours and take an anti-inflammatory. Then be cautious in combat.”

“Wait, three _days_? I have shit I need to do tomorrow! Can’t I just use some medi-gel or something?”

“That would be against medical recommendations. Would likely result in further physical injury and pain.”  
  
She gets off the table, ignoring the ache in her wrist. “Yeah, well. I don’t care. I’m just glad it’s not broken.”  
  
“Shepard, that’s not—”

“I’ll be fine.” She waves him off, taking one last glance back at the medbay. His mouth, pulled into a frown. Surrounded by microscopes and test-tubes and nothing else. No one else. The scars on his face stand out under the lights. Something inside her tugs at the sight—something like familiarity. Reflection. Understanding.  
  
She walks on.

* * *

 _Damn_. The vids she watched as a kid weren't kidding when they talked about the views here. Ada rests her tired arms on the shiny railing. Her wrist’s doing better now. A dull throb instead of sharp ache as it rests on the metal. The glassy buildings stretch up tall and thin into a hazy lavender sky. The air, it hangs heavy with the smell of jasmine perfume. There’s the soft murmur of people, the hum of a city alive, and _god_ it’s nice to be out of the ship. Her gaze catches on an ivy-decorated balcony. A tall, pretty woman in a silvery top is chatting to a giggly asari. There’s honeyed laughter, the clink of glasses.  
  
Her stomach tugs. For the first time in a long time, she— _wants._ Wants to shed her armor and Cerberus scars; trade them for her favorite dark dress. She’d walk right up there. She’d sip on a peach cocktail, her arm looped around a certain Canadian’s waist. Warm. Easy.

She looks away.

* * *

Liara. Here. She found her. The rusty orange sun glints through the shades of her office. And she’s not asking to come with her, to go to Cerberus, which is a relief, but— 

Still. It’s all wrong. 

Long gone is the kid who got lost studying dig sites; who got all bubbly every time she talked about the building foundations of Prothean ruins. The nervous picking at her nails, the soft laughter at Ash’s joke in the mess.

No. Now she’s—angry. Angry, and hard like ice.

Ada’s heart clenches, Liara blurring. Fuck. _Fuck_. She missed too much. Fucked too much up. And now, now Liara’s asking for help, asking for leads, asking to help with her hunt. And Ada says yes, because how could she not? It’s still Liara, and if she can bridge anything between them, bring anything back, force shit to make _sense_ again, god. She will. She’ll do anything.

Five terminals and a needling headache later, she gives Liara the data. 

“Seriously, though, Liara. Why are you so focused on taking down the Shadow Broker? What’d he do to you?”

Liara goes quiet, her hands stopping their typing.

“Did Cerberus ever tell you how they recovered your body, Shepard?”

Ada stiffens in her chair. _Cerberus?_ “Uh, no. They didn’t. Well, I didn’t really ask, either, but still. Why?”

Liara looks at her, and the hard diamond in her expression is cracked. 

“I gave your body to them. It was me.”

All the air, knocked out of her. Like falling overboard and plunging into the dark, freezing ocean. 

“ _What?_ What the hell did you just say?”

“I. I didn’t have a choice. If I failed to recover your body, the Collectors were going to take it. The Shadow Broker was going to sell your body to them. It was either giving you to Cerberus, or allowing the Broker sell you to the Collectors. And I knew Cerberus was going to use you for their own ends, but I couldn’t simply let you die, I—”

“That wasn’t your fucking _choice_ to make, Liara!” She jolts to her feet, dizzy, sick, her scars aching. Their scars. Cerberus, their hands inside her, stitching her together like their damn puppet, tubes down her throat, a ship that makes her nauseous. She could’ve stayed in the ice instead. Could’ve stayed goddamn _dead_. “You did this to me. You _did_ this to me! How could you?”

“I’m so sorry. But I couldn’t let the Broker sell you to the Collectors! Goddess knows what they would have done to you! I had to stop—!” 

“You could’ve kept my body safe from the Collectors, yeah, and then _buried_ it _._ But you played God. And now I’m stuck here, and I’ve lost _everything_ , and you—! You fucking did this!” 

She walks out. Shoving past Tali and Garrus, shoving past the guard. Liara’s voice calls out, but Ada doesn’t stop. Her anger, splintered glass that’s lodged in her throat. Piercing her skin, leaking blood. 

She’s in an alley somewhere, purple lights and the low thud of music behind the wall. Tali and Garrus. Here. 

Tali’s hand hovers over her shoulder. “Are you alright? What Liara did—” 

Ada shakes her off. Presses a cold glove into her forehead, trying to get rid of the pounding. 

“It. _Fuck_. It doesn’t matter. What’s done is done.”

“Still. That’s a hell of thing to find out from an old friend,” Garrus hums, voice low.

She clenches her jaw, and gives Garrus and Tali a long, hard look. “Could we not talk about this right now? We need to find the assassin. Okay?”

They glance at each other, and god she doesn’t have the energy to figure out what the fuck they’re worried about. She just needs to focus on the mission. The mission from hell she’s stuck in because of Liara, yeah, but it still needs to get done. Somehow.

“Come on.”

She leads the way out of the alley, back into the cool, shiny sheen of Illium. The shards of glass puncture deeper.

* * *

Thane sets the mug of tea in front of her. Smells like mint this time. She wishes he’d just make her coffee, but she doesn’t have it in her to tell him that.

“Thanks.” Her cold hands circle around the warm ceramic. Her hands, so cold ever since she saw Liara. Which—fuck. _Fuck,_ she doesn’t want to think about that. Anything but that. God knows she was probably unfair to Liara on Illium. It’s obvious Liara went through hell to get her body away from the Collectors, but—still. That’s hard to remember when she wakes up staring at a Cerberus logo every fucking morning. 

She pushes her focus back to her tea. _Stop thinking about it. Doesn’t matter anymore._ Her tea, and Thane, who sits across the table from her. Steam curls up into the light. Mint and steam and quiet. The good thing about Thane is he doesn’t push. Samara and him, yeah, they don’t push. No questions about why she’s up so late for the third week in a row, or why she skipped dinner, or if she’s worried about their odds. She gets to just sit there. For once.

_He lingers by the countertop, warm amber eyes watching her pour the boiling water. Blue light, the blue of his uniform. She can’t help the smile tugging at her mouth._

Her heart pricks sharp, like grazing the edge of a knife. She tightens her grip on the mug, and she resolutely does her damn best to shove away _that_ particular splinter of memory. She doesn’t think about him anymore. She can’t, she won’t. This is just tea with Thane. Different ship, different circumstances, different person. Something to kill the time while they chug towards the next assignment. 

A slow sip of her tea, and— _sweet honey._ She looks over at Thane. “You put honey in it?”

A small, barely-there smile. “Yes. I heard one of the crew-members speaking of the human enjoyment of it.” The smile fades. “Unless you do not like it.” 

“No, no, I do. Honey’s great. I just wasn’t expecting it, that’s all.” The ache in her chest gives way to something close to warmth. Thin, but there. “Thanks, Thane.”

He nods, sipping on his own drink, and they lapse back into a steady, long silence. Nothing to do but sit there. And watch the steam rise.


	6. No After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Investigating the derelict Collector ship hits too close to home, and Ada struggles to differentiate past and present. TW for descriptions of a flashback and a panic attack.

_My filters are broken._

That’s gotta be it. A couple steps into the Collector ship and she can smell it. Rotten, mold-heavy fruit. An edge of burned hair. God, she shouldn’t be able to smell anything except the metallic inside of her helmet and ozone, but—fuzzy mold and burned hair. It’s getting in her throat. Lining it, a thin film of rot. She swallows, and swallows again, gripping her rifle until it creaks. They’ve gotta get whatever data’s on this thing and get the hell out of here. Should be simple. Quick.

_Unless I choke first._

A pile of broken bodies looms in front of her and the floor sways. Can’t look but can’t not look, because they’re dead, and they have no names. No way to tell who they were, or send them home to the people that love them. The pods, sagging with limp corpses, too. Her filters really must be fucked, because the _smell_ of putrid, warm meat— 

She bites down on the urge to gag. _Snap out of it, Shepard. You’ve seen dead bodies before. And you have a mission: to stop this. Focus on that. Nothing else._

Sickly-yellow light’s everywhere. The Collectors were Protheans, but all she can focus on is the damn lighting. If she looks at it too long her stomach clenches hard. The smell, the lighting. It’s inside her. Seeping down her throat and into her body, and she feels sick in here. Stuffy, cramped, dizzy. Gotta get out already. The Collectors were Protheans. They got slit open, shoved full with wires and genes and needles until there was nothing left. Nothing except means to a damn end. 

_Fuck. That’d make Liara so sad._

“Shepard, hey. You need to hear this.” Joker’s clear, warm voice on comms breaks through some of the fuzziness in her head. “I ran the ID on this ship. Turns out it was the one on Horizon, but it also matches signatures from—well. From the attack on the original Normandy.” 

She freezes in the middle of the hall. What the _hell_ did he just say?

“You’re positive?”

“Yeah. Positive.”

“Okay. Yeah. Okay,” she chokes out through the rushing in her ears. This was the ship that—this was it. The thing she didn’t see coming. The thing that— 

Tali’s hand grips her shoulder and shoves her down. “Keelah, watch your shields, Shepard!”

_What? Shields?_

The loud, insistent beeping inside her helmet. The muffled sound of gunfire. Wait. Gunfire. She’s kneeling behind a misshapen wall, the purple shine of Tali’s drone up ahead. Garrus is shouting something on comms. Chittering, clicking, and _gunshots_. 

They’re under attack. _When did we—?_

Doesn’t matter. They’re under attack. _Fuck!_

Her nostrils flare and she rushes out, pushing Tali behind her, legs heavy, but the gunshots keep coming so she can’t stop. She aims for the blurs of wings and thin legs, breathing fast now. An explosion rocks the walls around them, and they won’t last long, dark cold space waiting out there. Joker’s on comms saying something but she can’t make it out.

All she knows now is that they’re under attack, and they need to get out of here. She needs to get them _out._

Bile burns the back of her throat as she scrambles over a wall. Slams her fist into the wire-infested face of a husk. Her heart’s pounding against her ribs, hard, too hard, but they’ve gotta get out. Have to.  
  
“Move!”

She pushes Tali and Garrus into the escape shuttle—looks back. Where’s Kaidan? The Draven sisters, they were working on the crossword puzzle this morning but did they make it to a shuttle? A body on the floor, neck snapped. Was that Pressley? Marcus? Wait, no, that’s not—what is she—? Her thighs tense to run back into the murky dark. Can’t leave them. No, that’s not right, she’s somewhere else now, a different ship, the Collectors used to be Protheans and Liara would hate that— 

“Shepard, come on!”

Garrus hauls her into the shuttle by the arm and the door slides shut. The floor lurches up under her. And she just left them to die.

“Wait, we can’t just—!”

They do anyway. Her stomach twists in on itself, violent, and she’s gonna be sick. She has to go back, but she’s in the SR-2’s cockpit now and she’s gripping Joker’s chair, reaching towards his arm to get him out even though there’s something in her that’s telling her that’s not what she’s supposed to be doing, and the ship trembles, a bright blast of sparks above her—she needs to get them the fuck out of here—

The sparking yellow disappears. The floor stabilizes. She blinks the spots out of her eyes. Joker’s here, and the hull isn’t in big, molten-red chunks.

She wrenches off her helmet—a gasping breath of clean, sterile air. Joker, still here. Pale, glistening with sweat, but breathing. He presses his shaky hand into his forehead. “ _Shit_. That. That was way too close of a call. You okay, Commander?” 

Can’t answer.

The Illusive Man glimmers in front of her and she wants to reach through the hologram and slam his fucking head into the floor. The rot’s in her. Down in her lungs now, spreading, taking root. Doesn’t matter what he’s saying because he betrayed them and she’ll never trust a damn thing he says. Never again.

In her cabin now, pacing. Her lower back is wet and hot with sweat. This is all fucked, and her filters were broken, so now she has Collector scum in her lungs, and she’s gonna choke to death. She massages her chest, forcing even, slow breaths, but it’s not working. Liquid in her lungs. Molasses-thick. Spreading into every corner, every empty spot inside her, filling her throat. Rotten fruit, burned hair. She turns the lights on as bright as they can go—not yellow, not dark, just bright and piercing and fine. She grinds her shiny, too-strong teeth together hard. She’s fine. Has to be goddamn _fine,_ because they got data on the relay, on surviving the way in, and she’s off that ship, and everything’s fine. She’s in her cabin and she’s fine.

Her eyes well up, hot. 

Fuck. She’s not fine. She’s dying.

The floor’s hard and cold under her. She’s hunched up with her back pressed against something solid. A cold wall, she curls deeper, small as she can get. Head between her knees, trying to breathe through the sickness, the rot. The yellow bile filling her. 

She left them to die. Kaidan’s dead. Ashley. All of them. Dead. How could she be so fucking stupid? Stupid. Stupid, and now she’s gonna die, and she killed them, and she needs to get out, needs to go, needs to get them out, needs to—needs—needs— 

Her nails claw into her scalp. She hunches deeper, muscles so tight they’re trembling. Needs to get out. Or breathe. Can’t. Another heaving breath and it’s not enough air, it’s not enough fucking _air_ , and all she wants to do is breathe, breathe big clean breaths, but her lungs are full of liquid and she left them to die, left them in there, stupid, stupid, fucking _stupid—_

She sucks in air, holds it deep, shuts her eyes and waits. Waits, and _waits_ for it to happen: for everything to turn off. To die.

Fish tank. No fish, but the faint sound of the tank gurgling. 

That’s the first thing she notices. Fish tank. Bubbles. A sound. So that means— 

She lifts her head, muscles in her neck tight and cramped. Doesn’t know how long it’s been, but there’s the fish tank, and if she’s staring at it, that means she isn’t dead. She’s in her cabin on the SR-2. A shaky, fragile breath in. The cool air spreads through her lungs, sticks a little, but it’s not choked. Not full of so much liquid, so breaths are coming a little easier now. She flexes her cramped fingers, scalp throbbing with nail marks. Okay. She has fingers. They look weird. Plastic, or not her hands, or—something. Hell if she knows.

She claws herself to her feet. Mechanically stamps her boots onto the floor, and a dull ache spreads through her heels. Okay. She has feet so she isn’t dead. They got off the Collector ship.

Didn’t get blown up. That’s a good thing. 

_Well. Maybe._

On her bed, she’s staring at her hands again. There’s the bite of faint, faint hunger in her stomach, but she doesn’t pay attention to it. Her hands. She keeps coming back to them. The scar from the fight with Saren’s smoothed over, gone, but there’s a new one running through her knuckles. Red. Her skin smells like minty soap—did she take a shower? She remembers thinking about a shower. Doesn’t remember taking it but she smells like soap so she must’ve. Her eyelids are heavy, swollen. Where are they going? She’s pretty sure she didn’t set a course. They drifting now? Like pirates. As a kid, she had that phase where she wanted to be a space pirate. Jules and her on a ship, twenty stray dogs at their side. 

Yeah. Hopefully Joker knows where they’re going.

Her forearm lays heavy over her eyes. Spots of shifting color play out behind her eyelids, and her fuzzy attention catches on that. Shifting color, the mattress soft underneath her, the low thrum of the engines. The smell of mint. Her muscles, heavy. Feels like she’s stuck under a heavy blanket, maybe. A wet layer of concrete. Something she won’t be able to get out from under for a while. Dinner. Yeah. That’s off the table. She’ll just eat tomorrow. Yeah. Okay.

Ada curls into herself. Exhales deep and slow.

_I just want this to be over._


	7. Anesthetic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Accidentally acquiring a hamster, then going to a bar with Garrus—Ada has a weird week. Weird, but good, maybe.

The hamster stares at her and she stares at him.

 _Shit._ Ada totally forgot about last week—middle of the night, bleary, just wanted to think about anything else. Joker mentioned something about how he used to have a hamster as a kid, and then she was scrolling through hamster listings on her terminal at three a.m. She meant to cancel the order in the morning, but it slipped her mind, and now… 

There’s a hamster in her cabin. Fluffy brown, eyes big and wet and _staring_ out of his huge glass tank. She chews on her nail, glancing at him. Glancing away. She needs to send him back. Has to. It’d be crazy to keep him—she can’t take care of herself, let alone a hamster, and god knows they probably aren’t coming back from this mission. She shouldn’t drag a poor innocent hamster into this. The responsible thing to do would be to send him back.

Her omni glows orange and she’s typing in the site she ordered him from. Yeah. She’ll send him back and this’ll just be a weird Tuesday morning for her. Simple as that. 

The hamster squeaks. He _squeaks,_ little paws pressing up against the glass, whiskers long, eyes pleading.

Her bruised heart softens like warm dough.

_Pip Jr._

The name comes to her unbidden—backed with a blue, sharp twinge of pain, the aquarium, Pip the otter, and Kaidan’s warm hand in hers blinding her—but it suits the hamster perfectly. With those adorable whiskers, that bright chirp. Pip Jr.

God. She can’t send him back. Now he has a name, and he’s snuffling around the corner of the tank, rolling around in his stuffing, happily squeaking some more when she drops a couple of the small treats that came with the tank in there. 

Ada takes a deep, steadying breath. Well. Guess she’s completely fucking losing it, because she owns a hamster now. It’ll be good, probably. Good to take her mind off things. And if anything happens to her, she'll make sure he's taken care of. That's the least she can do.

For now, she quietly watches the little guy munch on his treats, whiskered cheeks full. 

_You're just too damn cute, huh?_

* * *

Ada rubs the side of the chilly, wet glass with her thumb, eyes darting around the bar. It’s nice enough. The lights are a cool, soft blue, and the thud of the music is quiet. Unobtrusive. She’s pretty sure she’s passed by this place before, but like hell if she remembers the name. What matters is that she’s not on the SR-2, and that there’s a fruity, iced drink in front of her. Strongest thing they had and it won’t do much, but it’s better than water. Maybe she’ll get lucky this time, and Omega was a fluke, and she can get drunk just fine, thank you.

_Don’t think luck is on your side, Shepard._

She frowns at the orange-pink drink. Well. Drinking expensive liquor that might as well be fruit juice is still better than spending another day in her cabin alone. God, one more _second_ of her thoughts stuck on Sidonis and the way she saw her own flat, dead gaze reflected in his; the way it felt like looking in a mirror, and she might’ve just lost it. 

Bar’s definitely better.

“Sorry about that. Got talking with the bartender,” Garrus says, sliding back into the booth, a bright-red drink gripped in his talon. Smells like bitter cherry and something else she can’t place. Something spicy. She keeps her eyes on the clinking ice in her glass. 

“You know her?”

“Yeah. Old friend from C-Sec. Quit like I did, but went into something, well. Less explosive.”

“Mm. Maybe we should’ve gone into bartending. Might’ve worked out better.”

“Not sure about that. I’m pretty sure we still would’ve managed to blow something up.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Ada sighs out, finally glancing over at him, and her jaw tenses at what she sees. The webbing of scars on his neck and face stand out in this lighting, and his gaze won’t stay on hers. Moves from one corner of the bar to the other. Scanning. Talons tapping on his drink, mandibles tight, like Sidonis might walk right in, like he’s waiting for it.

Damn it. He’s tense as hell. Even on the Normandy, with Saren or Dr. Saleon—he was never like this. Never this wound up, a mine about to trip. 

_Fuck. This is all wrong. Again._

The heavy, sharp-edged ache inside her chest she’s been trying to ignore all day acts up. Maybe coming here with him was a bad call, maybe she should just bail and go back to her cabin, maybe— 

A glass in front of her, glimmering crimson.

_Huh?_

“Well, how about a toast?”

Oh. Garrus. He’s raising his glass. Swallowing the ache creeping up her throat, she raises her glass too. Mechanical. 

_Different. It’s all too different._

“Oh, yeah, sure. What are we toasting to?”

“I, uh. Hm. Kind of thought you’d do the speech part. You like the big speech thing, right?”

“Seriously?” She quirks an eyebrow at him, but he doesn’t budge. Just tilts his head and waits. She sighs deep. Relents. She’s not dumb enough to try and out-stubborn Garrus. “God, fine. To, hmmm.”

The scars on his face shine, silvery. The scars etched through her skin itch. 

“How about—to not being dead yet? Yeah. To not being dead yet, Garrus. Cheers.”

Their glasses clink together in the gloom.

“No offense, but if that was supposed to boost my morale—that was a terrible speech.”

“Oh, shut up, Vakarian.” She vaguely kicks for his shin under the table, a wry smile tugging at her mouth, pulling at the aching lines of red and bruise, and it’s—shit. She’s pretty sure it’s the first time she’s smiled for real since all this started. 

_God, that’s depressing._

Garrus cracks a dumb joke about Cerberus and another grin pulls at her, uncomfortable, stretched, but it’s there. Weird, but there. Garrus stops glancing at the exit as he downs another cherry-red drink.

Yeah. If she looks at his talons and not his face, focuses on the rumble of his voice, soaks in the smell of spiced alcohol and peanuts—she can almost believe it. That it hasn’t been two years. In the middle of their debate about which sniper rifle's superior, it’s almost like the Normandy, lighting low, Alliance-blue, is waiting outside for them. Ash is over at the pool table, glass of whiskey in her hands, big warm laughter in her throat. Just out of sight. And next weekend she's heading to Kaidan’s, the latest season of _Top Chef: Galactic Edition_ stored in her omni, toothbrush, perfume, and a change of clothes in her bag. She’ll call her mom outside in the cool Citadel air and talk about nothing. 

She chews on the ice in her glass, a dazed, hazy feeling smoothing over the rough edges, the brimming ache inside her. Garrus tells her stupid stories about prank wars with his sister when they were kids, and the image of him, tiny, sprinting through his house with glitter all over his face—she can’t help it. A rough, short laugh spills out of her, surprises her, unused muscles in her stomach aching, but it feels, well. Almost normal. 

Garrus knocks his shoulder with hers. She sips on cold peachy liquor. And just for a couple hours, in the blue haze of the bar—nothing else matters.

Nothing else is real.


	8. Losing Exits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mission wears on Ada. With the finish line in sight, she starts tying up loose ends.

The bottle of sunscreen trembles in her hand. Pip Jr is busy munching on his food in the background, cheeks working overtime. Her eyes drift to him for a minute— _cute—_ but the sunscreen. Still there. A smiling sun, a yellow cap. 50SPF, because Tuchanka is gonna be boiling hot, and cybernetic skin or not—she isn’t immune to sunburns. Or skin cancer.

Chakwas gave it to her. Will kill her if she comes back red and peeling again. She clicks open the bottle, and pours some onto her hand.

_Mom wraps her in a big hug, lifts her off the ground, kisses her on the head, the sunny backyard glowing green and bright behind her. The smell of sweet, oily sunscreen. Ada giggles as calloused hands ruffle her hair._

The same smell—yeah. Just like she thought. It’s the same damn brand her mom uses. Sweet, thick coconut, a smiling sun, a yellow cap.

The sharp pang cuts right through the far-off daze, the haze from the bar, the unreal sheen on everything. Slices right through, grazing bone, leaking blood.

_Oh, god. Mom. I miss Mom. I miss her. I need her, and I need to tell her about Pip Jr, and the way my hair’s growing out a darker brown than it should, and—_

A hard breath in. _Shut up._ She clicks the cap shut, stalks over to the bathroom, scrubs the sunscreen off her hands. Scrubs until it stings. Gripping the basin, shoving down the surging ache, the leaking blood. Push it back down into the fog. Down. _Down._

_Shut up. You have no right to miss her. No goddamn right. She doesn’t want you back and you know it. You’re a damn traitor._

Grunt’s rite underway, the Tuchankan sun burns her skin. She lets it.

* * *

The coffee-maker clicks and hisses. Silver, orange. Cerberus-orange just like everything else and she still isn’t used to it. Even after, what, five months? She should be used to it by now.

_Miranda smiles, eyes crinkling when she looks at Oriana. A rare sight. And maybe it makes Ada feel a little less sick when she’s around Miranda. Maybe it helps. Helps when Miranda says, “Thank you, Shepard.” And she means it this time._

_Or maybe it just reminds her of Ash._

She slams the cupboard closed, jaw twitching. Coffee. That’s all she needs. Strongest coffee she can stomach, and then she’ll check in with Tali, and see what the Flotilla wanted from her. And things will be fine. 

_Julia sprints towards her, piercings glinting in the harsh airport light, and wraps her in a bear hug. “You made it!”_

Another stab, deep into the bone. Bone that’s cracking now, that’s been splintering more and more, the blood leaking through. The surreal haze thinned out and she can’t get it back and she needs it back, because if she has to take another day of this—

Her nails dig into the ceramic mug. Sisters, and reunions, and Kolyat staring at her with the same look she used to see in the mirror every damn morning when she was a stupid kid, his absent father, and shit that doesn’t fucking matter anymore, Ada. It doesn’t _matter._

Cerberus orange everywhere. On the walls, on the coffee-maker, running deep through her skin. Will never leave.

None of this will ever leave.

Coffee on the counter, she’s staring at it, staring at nothing, her chest is nothing but cracked bone. Her head pounds. None of this, ever leaving, and the thought of that makes her want to puke or scream or—or— 

_One-way mission. Remember? A way out. All this has an end point. And it’s close now._

“Shepard? You okay?”

Joker, here, hand hovering. 

Eyes shut tight. Breathing through her teeth, but he needs to be the one to do it. Only one she trusts with this.

“Joker,” she chokes out, words scraping her throat. “I know I’ve already asked a hell of a lot from you, but my hamster. Pip Jr. This sounds—stupid, but. If something happens to me. If something happens, can you take care of him? Or make sure he gets a good home?”

Silence. The hum of the fridge, and—what, did he leave? She cracks open her eyes, trying to straighten up, breathe through the radiating, impossible ache inside her. Can’t, but Joker’s here.

Frowning, deep. Pale like a corpse.

“Nothing’s gonna happen to you, Shepard.” A strained smile that doesn’t meet his eyes. “We’re gonna blow up the Collectors, and then we’re gonna throw a damn good party, and everything’s gonna be fine. We’re gonna be fine. So don’t worry about Pip Jr, alright?”

“ _Joker_. I’m serious. Just. Just promise me, okay?”

His eyes widen, a shadow of terror in his eyes she can’t stomach. “I—yeah. I’ll make sure he’s okay if anything happens.” His hand, reaching, falling. “But, hey, are you sure you’re holding up—?”

She doesn’t let him finish. Walks off. She feeds Pip Jr his food, watching him burrow in his tank. A grim frown on her face.

_Joker’s gonna find you a good home. Better than this one._

* * *

God, Ada can’t believe she’s doing this. It’s a rainy, wet day on Illium, the lights on the tall buildings glinting through gray fog. She pushes through the umbrellas, the hurrying crowd, straight towards the flickering neon of _administration._

Liara’s office.

She stops at the bottom of the stairs, wiping rainwater off her short fuzz of hair. Tali and Garrus, lingering. God, why _is_ she doing this again? Replying to Liara’s short, desperate email with a _yes, I’ll be there_ instead of an _no, absolutely not?_

_I don’t want more blood._

A deep sigh. She glances towards the skyline, the docks. The yellow lights of skycars shining through the fog. She doesn’t have to do this. Doesn’t have to see Liara again, protect her six, shoot down Shadow Broker guards for her. Not after what she did— _it was me. I gave you to them, Shepard._ She could leave. Never see her again. But, fuck, if she doesn’t do this, yeah, blood. Liara’s blood, that’d be on her. Because Liara would still go in, hired mercs and a whole lot of reckless anger with her. And she’d end up hurt. Or worse, maybe, probably.

Ada can’t stand that thought, bitter shards of anger stuck in her chest or not. Plus, they’re just about ready for the Collector base. For the end of all of this. Might as well make sure Liara ends up okay, right? A final favor for what used to be a friend. A loose end, tied up neat. And Ashley would kill Ada if she didn’t help. If she didn’t make sure the kid was safe. 

So helping Liara kill the Shadow Broker it is.

Ada takes one final look at the rainy skyline, swallows the edges of glass, and heads up the stairs.

* * *

Liara looks around the cabin, fish-tank blue reflecting off her face. Cuts and bruises from the brutal fight through the base are taped and healing on her jaw. 

“This is a beautiful cabin, Shepard.”

“Yeah, well. I didn’t choose the decor.” Ada shrugs, stood by the desk, her own shoulders still tender and sore. She’s still sore from this whole thing. A hard fight, but it felt—almost okay for a second there. The familiar smell of ozone, Liara’s singularity thrumming in front of her, Tali’s drone glinting in the dark. God, she doesn’t know how the hell to feel about all this. After seeing Feron, the desperate way Liara fought for him; how much Liara gave up to keep her body away from the Collectors—fuck. It’s not as simple to stay mad anymore. Not as easy.

 _If it’d been Kaidan’s body, stuck in the ice, the Collectors hunting for it—fuck. I don’t know what I would’ve done, either. I don’t know._

Liara wanders over to Pip Jr, tapping the glass softly, a small smile on her face. Wonder, maybe. Wonder that she used to wear all the time. Before Benezia, before two years of a dark, lonely chase. 

Liara turns to her. Something shiny in her hands.

“I would like to give you a gift, Shepard. To thank you for helping me take down the Shadow Broker.” 

Ada clears her throat, trying to focus. Sharp glass is still lodged in her and she can’t decide how to feel. Can’t understand shit anymore.

“That’s. Oh. That’s okay, Liara. I don’t need a present. I’m just glad you’re safe now.”

“No. You helped me even after what I did to you.” She hands her the box, and it’s—what? What the fuck? “Your tags, Shepard. I found them.”

Ada takes a step back, the glass box in her hands. Dog-tags, shiny. Her name imprinted in silver, an Alliance logo right next to it.

Oh. God.

Blurry horror grips her. She can’t—hold this. Can’t have these. A Cerberus dog holding something pure, contaminating it, not Alliance, not—Commander Shepard is dead and she can’t be holding these, she— _traitor traitor fucking traitor—_

“No. No. I’m sorry, but. But I can’t have these. I’m not Alliance. I’m. I’m not Alliance, Liara, and having these would be—I can’t. Please, take them back. Please.” 

Something like panic flashes across Liara’s face, and she steps forward. Gingerly takes the tags out of her hands. “Oh. Oh, Goddess, Shepard. I’m sorry. I thought they would be a simple reminder of the Normandy, I did not—I did not think that you wouldn’t want them.” 

Ada watches her stuff the tags back in her bag. The gripped tension in her shoulders only releases when they’re out of sight. 

“I’m sorry. It was a sweet gesture. I just. Well. Yeah. Those … They aren’t mine anymore.”

“Yes. I understand.” 

The fish tank bubbles. Pip Jr snuffles around his tank. Ada can’t find words inside her. Nothing to say. A rusted, warped bridge between them, too unstable to cross.

Liara moves to leave, bag on her shoulder. “Thank you for inviting me up. For your help, too. And good luck with the rest of your mission.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Liara smiles, thin, eyes downcast. As Ada watches her step into the elevator, she feels—bad. Or something. Hell if she knows.

With one final nod in Ada’s direction, the doors shut, and Liara disappears from view. Going back into her new life. Her life as the Shadow Broker.

Ada stares at the cold, empty spot Liara left, and she doesn’t move.


	9. Precipice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six hours left until they reach the Collector base. Six hours, and Ada finds herself drawn towards an old, dead life.

Ada checks every dark corner, every bright spot. They might’ve left someone or something behind. Dazed, cold. The back of her neck prickles when she rounds the corner into the mess—the dead quiet. Chakwas’ office, empty. No chatter near the sleeper pods, no gruff quips from Gardner.

_You failed. Again._

Fingers press and push into the scarring on her hand and it bites. She’ll find them. Rescue them. Has to, because Cerberus or not, they were still _her_ crew. Her responsibility. And she won’t lose anyone else.

Can’t.

In her cabin, pacing, skin flushed cold and clammy. They’re hurtling towards the relay. This was supposed to be different. She was the only one that was supposed to make this a one-way trip—everyone else? They were gonna make it. She’d be sure of it. 

But the quiet is pushing in from every side. Everything, going wrong, again. And she won’t lose another crew. Cerberus or not, hating half of them or not. She’ll get them out.

She’s fed Pip Jr his best pellets, and left extra food and water. Checked her weapons and armor six times. Organized her reports. Still pacing, cold-sweat seeped into her dark top. 

_Almost there. Almost done._

She’s sitting at her desk, staring at her hands. Six hours ‘til they hit the relay. A day, pretty much. A whole day. Or night. Or whatever.

_The bright pink of the stomach meds in Dad’s kitchen. Trying to fight off nausea from the hangover, staring at his blueberry pancakes. Watermelon candy in the park with Julia._

Ada blinks, a scowl creeping on to her face. Weird to be thinking about that now. She should be thinking about the mission. How to rescue the crew. How to blow up the Collectors, and do it right.

Her mind turns away from her. Turns in on itself, stretching back, reaching deep, going places she doesn’t fucking want it to go. 

_A pitcher of sparkling lemon water,_ _Liara and Ash chatting next to her, steam rising from the rocks. Raspberry lemonade and chemistry homework, Reyna’s tabby-cat socks._

She gnaws on the scar tissue in her mouth. Fragments of a life that’s dead, a life—no. She can’t. She focuses on her hands, on the report in front of her. Not this. God, god, not _this_. Please.

But. The bottle. The bottle of perfume. It’s in her desk from when she shoved it in there a couple months ago, bought on another damn whim, and she should’ve tossed it in the trash. A couple months ago, but it feels like years. Her hands, shaky, tentative, stupid, they open the drawer. And they take it out. She stares at the sharp, sculpted outline. Citrus, mint and jasmine.

Kaidan’s favorite.

Dazed, stupid, she must be so stupid, she drifts over to bed. Sinks down into the mattress. One small spray on her pillow—

_The fresh scent of him after the shower. His blurry silhouette against the morning sun, two spritzes of it on his neck. Lingering on the collar of his uniform. The moonlight bathing him, the freckle on his temple, his hand gripped in hers._

She breathes in the sweet, light scent. Like sun, like him. One last time. And she finally does it. In her inbox—the email he sent after Horizon. The email she archived and couldn’t stomach reading. 

_Ada, hey. I wanted to apologize for what I said on Horizon. I spent two years pulling myself back together after you went down with the Normandy. It took me a long time to...  
_

Hugging her own body, heart leaking blood, she reads the words over and over and over. His voice, the ghost of it, the deep, gentle rumble, it washes over her. Citrus, mint, jasmine. Pink stomach meds, watermelon candy, coconut sunscreen. Everyone, everything, washing over her, and she sinks into cold, lonely dark water of it. Of the place she left. The place she’s leaving. One last time.

_I'm so sorry.  
_


	10. Near Miss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Surviving the Collector base breaks Ada's iron grip on her feelings, and she’s left reeling. TW for implied suicidal thoughts.

“You beat the odds, Shepard. Third time in a row. Pretty sure that calls for a toast,” Garrus hums out, leaned back on the couch, mandibles twitching into a smile.

_What?_

Observation deck. That’s. That’s where she is. Stumbling, drunk bodies push into her, talk loud, crack open beer bottles, and the thud of music pulses through the floor. The drink she’s holding—amber liquid. Smells like bitter shoe polish so it must be whiskey. Wait. Wait. When did she. When did she get a glass of whiskey? When did she get here?

Garrus, tilting his head like he does. The webbing of scars on his face stands out. “Shepard? What, you get stage fright?”

Tali breaks into Ada’s field of vision, a straw in her suit. She giggles and loops an arm around her shoulder. Ada, she goes stiff, but Tali doesn’t seem to notice. She says something incoherent, or maybe it’s coherent because Garrus chuckles, and Samara seats herself next to him on the couch, expression cool but she’s got the corners of her mouth quirked up, and when did Samara—

The swollen cut on Ada’s temple throbs. The glass in her hand slips an inch. 

_The ground trembles underneath her feet, the whirring of the swarm deafening. Mordin, Thane in front of her, ahead, safe. Now. Now, it’s time, she has to stop. Has to let the heat burn her away._

_But. Her legs. Her legs. They won’t—won’t fucking stop surging forward, half-crawling up the dirty amber incline, away from the heat, the burn, the—they won’t—_

A bitter taste like blood, like arsenic in her mouth. Right. They rescued the crew. Turned the Collector base to ashes. Didn’t lose anyone at all.

And for some reason, she’s still standing here.

_Fuck._

* * *

She slips out when the poker starts, the sour taste of whiskey lingering in her mouth. Needs—something. Not sure what. In the elevator, the thud of the music fades away. They won’t miss her. Drunk, celebrating, the Collectors rotting in hell and Cerberus told to fuck off. Probably better if she isn’t there, anyway, bringing the mood down. They deserve a little joy. Something good.

Her cabin, it’s the same as it was when she left. The bottle of perfume is still on her bedside table. The extra food and water for Pip Jr is still there. Clothes folded, terminal shut, everything neat and simple and ready to be cleaned out for when she didn’t come back. 

But she did come back. She. Came back. She’s here. Now.

Sat down at her desk, always coming back to this desk. The light of the terminal’s screen hurts her eyes. No new emails, no orders, no destination to punch into the galaxy map. The ship hums, pushing along to nowhere. 

_This wasn’t supposed to happen._

A cold sheen of sweat on her forehead, her fist pushes into her teeth. God, this wasn’t supposed to _happen_. She isn’t supposed to be here. She _can’t_ be here, because in front of her is the room of a woman who’s supposed to be dead. Dead, and gone, and over. That was the promise.

But her hands. They’re still here, the fingers trembling, the bruised, hot lines of scarring running through. 

She bolts to her feet, desk chair slamming into the bathroom door. Pacing, now, to the bed and back and then starting the circle all over again. How many times is she gonna do this? Pace this damn cabin like a fucking cage, but there’s nowhere else to go—nowhere else that’s not stuffed with cameras and too many eyes. 

The tremble works its way up from her hands, through her arms, deep into her shoulders. Trembling, like the walls of the ship, speeding into darkness, into a future that isn’t real. God, can’t everyone else feel it, pressing in from all sides? This isn’t a real future. It’s nothing but blank space, nothing but _nothingness_ , a future that was never supposed to exist in the first place, and she can’t. She can’t be here, can’t do this, can’t breathe in a place she never goddamn _wanted_ to reach, and—and— 

Tears well up in her eyes, fogging the room. Here she is again, _again,_ just like after the Collector ship and Alchera and all of it. When will it stop? When will any of this just _stop_?

_It hurts._

Oh, god.

It fucking hurts, still being here. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it— 

A deep, heaving sob. It claws out of her body, and she clutches her chest, hunched over herself in the middle of the cold room. Tears drip down her chin, and she can’t choke them back, because it _hurts_. 

Her crew’s bodies, honored with the Collectors dust now, but they’ll always be stuck in the ice, and that’ll never change. Ashley, vapor, bodiless, gone, her mom and sisters cracked apart. And Kaidan’s never coming back, looking at her full of jagged glass, turning away. Mom’s unreachable, Dad never even emailed, her body is still not her body, won’t ever be hers again, and it’s the full brunt of a life she could never fucking stand, crushing her. 

And then crushing her some more.

“Fuck!” 

She stands there, her gasping sobs seeping into the hard, uncaring walls of the cabin. It’s so goddamn stupid and _pathetic_ and it hurts but she can’t stop, she can’t stop _._ Can’t stop, even though her throat’s raw, she feels like she’s gonna puke, her head’s throbbing, it hurts, and it’s never gonna stop hurting, and she just wants—she wants— 

_I don’t know. I don't know._

The hot water of the shower trails down her neck, her shoulders, her face. Sitting on the wet metal floor. Can’t move. Back of her throat aches, eyelids swollen and pink, but the dry-heave sobbing slowed down and eventually, in stutters, ebbed away—after fuck knows how long. Hours. Days. Forever, maybe.

Cold now. Tired and shivering. Water isn’t warming her up like she thought it would. Chilly, fuzzy, far away. Can’t feel the edges of her body, the edges of her thoughts. 

The water pings off the floor, circles the drain. It’s getting lukewarm. Will be icy cold soon, but she can’t move a muscle. Water, circling the silvery drain, gaze trailing it. The ship humming, moving towards nothing. Her empty day, her empty week, her whole empty life stretches out before her. A black hole, nothing getting in, nothing escaping.

_What. What now?_

Back in the desk chair. Clothes scratch her skin. Water drips off her short hair. Her cheek rests heavy on the table. Too hard to keep her head up now.

 _What the fuck do I do now?_

No answer inside her. Just fog. Just cold water.

Her omni rings, shrill, loud—right when her thoughts are turning towards the airlock downstairs.

_Go away._

But it doesn’t. Buzzing against her wrist, insistent, annoying, a swarm of mosquitos that won’t fucking quit. God, _fine._ She heaves her head up, looking at the orange light for a name she can swear at. 

_Admiral Hackett._

Wait. The hell? _Hackett_? That’s. Not right. Left the Alliance, not coming back. Not right. Her numb fingers fumble for the _answer_ button and she doesn’t know why. 

Hackett hands her a mission. The Bahak system. Aratoht. Reaper intel. Dr Kenson, she's locked away somewhere, deep in batarian space, and Ada's gotta go in alone. No crew, no way to get them hurt. 

“Are you in, Shepard?”

His blues glimmer on the screen, gold etched into navy blue. The sight makes her sick, but this isn’t going back to the Alliance, is it? Said so himself. A mission, alone, away from this place. This damned place she trapped herself in all those months ago. Away from the orange and black, the bright lights like a scalpel, the airlock calling her name. 

Shaky, weary—one final lifeline, one last thing she’ll do, and that’ll be it—she finds her voice. 

“Yes, sir. I’m in.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ada's reached the end of ME2! Hope you enjoyed her journey through it. Now, onto bigger (even sadder) things like the Arrival DLC and ME3. I'm still in the process of writing her ME3 fic, but that'll eventually see the light of day, too. Thanks so much for reading! <3


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